Synecdoche and Battles Over the Meaning of “Fracking”

Abstract

In this paper, I undertake a qualitative analysis of promotional materials published by leading players in the fracking controversy within the U.S. to demonstrate how contradictory interpretations of fracking’s impacts came to coexist. I argue that both conclusions – fracking’s safety and fracking’s riskiness – were products not strictly of scientific or technical knowledge, but of the way in which narrative understanding via synecdoche guided interpretation of the science. Through the strategic use of synecdoche, industry attempted to discount most of the problems with the oil/gas drilling process as “unrelated to fracking” and thus make “fracking” appear to be safe. Influential environmental activists, in turn, attempted to alter the term’s meaning to bring these problems back under the umbrella of “fracking.”

KEYWORDS:

• Fracking
• oil and gas
• narrative
• public relations
• activism
• qualitative analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Steven Brechin, Tom Rudel, and Judith Gerson for support and feedback on previous drafts

Notes

1 Although the IPAA produced a counter-documentary, Truthland, which is highlighted on EID’s “Gasland Debunked” page (EID, n.d.-c), I do not include it in the data here due to Vasi (2018)’s conclusion that, in contrast to Gasland, Truthland failed to find an audience and had little impact. Indeed, Gasland’s trailer had more than 60 times as many Youtube views as Truthland’s as of July 2021.

2 Most of these documents are publicly available via the links provided in the References section. Several pages cited have been taken down on the original website, but can still be accessed via the Internet Archive. The two documentary films can be rented or purchased via online video retailers.

3 A 2018 website update replaced the “Just the Facts” page with a “Fracking 101” page (EID, n.d.-b) serving a similar purpose; here, the references to cement and casings were removed, but the distinction between fracking and drilling was otherwise retained.

4 That said, COGCC (2010) did link one instance to oil/gas development.